


Drop a Stone 2020 version Part 500 BC to slightly later.

by Smoke_Bramandin



Series: Drop a Stone [1]
Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Drop a Stone, Fix-It of Sorts, Modern Insert, Other, Slice of Life, Trapped in TV Land
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:13:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 20,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smoke_Bramandin/pseuds/Smoke_Bramandin
Summary: An intruder to Nosgoth is free from the forces of both History and Destiny.  Janos' death was prevented.  After things go wrong, what will it take to set things right?
Series: Drop a Stone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605454
Comments: 11
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started it by trying to write a serious epic, I think it will work better as a slice of life. I do scene requests.

Mobius was the Guardian of Time. He could see the past, the future, trace the lives of individuals, or see an impression of the world at any moment. He called it a certain omniscience, but he couldn’t know everything.

One problem was that unless he knew what he was looking for, he was more likely to see a dull moment in an unimportant person’s life than anything of relevance. There were also false possibilities. A person with a weak destiny could take the left fork in a path instead of the right, and die a week earlier than if he had gone the other way.

Mobius had looked forward into his own future, and his time and manner of death were fixed. A vampire would kill him right before plunging the entire world into darkness. It was only through tracing that vampire’s destiny that Mobius found the instrument of his revenge. His name was Raziel, and Mobius was able to mold him into one of the finest vampire killers that would ever live.

Unlike most people, Mobius could judge his actions by their consequences instead of his intent. The price would be heavy, but it was also the will of his God that all vampires should die. Mobius was sad at the cost, but his conscience was clear.

He kept emotionally distant from everyone, and the reason that he gave was that only death would outlive him. He was speaking about Mortanious, the Guardian of Death, but that friendship was poisoned by what the necromancer would do in the future. Mobius barely took it personally because Mortanious’ destiny was also too strong to be avoided.

  
Today, another vampire’s destiny would be fulfilled. He was the father of all vampires currently alive.

  
Far away, Northwest of the town of Uschenheim, a vampire stood motionless on a cliff. He paid no mind to the snowflakes that drifted onto his bare skin because it was harder than armor and immune to the cold. He wore leather pants to protect his modesty, and greaves to protect the veins in his wrists and ankles.

He was Kain, corrupt Guardian of Balance, and once god-king of a doomed empire. He had seen his Destiny, and in a bid to change it, he had sacrificed the first of his vampiric children.

Because of Raziel’s own Destiny, he could not die completely. He became unshackled from the Wheel of Fate enough that he could choose not to follow its whims. Kain’s death at Raziel’s hands had already been averted because Raziel chose to spare him, and Kain hoped that he could return the favor.

But today, Raziel’s choices would cause the greatest vampire in history to die. Kain could have warned Raziel, but that choice would have introduced a fatal stalemate. Events were already in motion, and all Kain could do was watch. He hated letting Mobius have this victory.

Across the lake, two figures stepped out onto a balcony. Janos wore a white robe in contrast to his black wings, while Raziel’s blue body stood out against the gray stone. After a time, they turned to go back inside.

Kain frowned as they stopped, as if something was in their way. He faintly heard a shriek carried on the wind. “Get out of here! He’s going to kill you.”

Kain couldn’t tell if he was pushed or if he slipped, but Janos tumbled from the balcony. His wings flailed but they were unable to keep him from hitting the frozen surface of the lake with a sickening thud. In a testament to vampire resilience, it only took a moment for Janos to stand, though he was still clearly dazed.

Kain gazed back up at the balcony where Raziel was fighting against armored Sarafan knights. A lucky blow with a polearm knocked him backwards off of the ledge. There was a hole in the ice, and Raziel hit the water with a splash.

Janos stumbled to the edge of the water and cried, “No, Raziel.” He stared for a moment until more knights moved in to surround him. With a powerful flap of his wings, he launched himself into the sky and flew away.

Those who know how the story is supposed to go are probably confused. Kain certainly was, and for the moment all he could do was stare in disbelief.  
Back at the Sarafan Fortress, eight of the nine Pillar Guardians were gathered around a scrying basin to watch Janos die. All of them murmured in disbelief except for Mobius. Mobius would have been the most confused, except he had a sudden, blinding headache and passed out.

The Sarafan knights were suffering from a different sort of confusion as they took the long way down from the balcony to the lake. They didn’t know yet that Janos had escaped. Mobius had mentioned the other one to them but told them not to be concerned. They weren’t even thinking of him now because vampires couldn’t come back from a water death.

Kain frowned, wondering what else could go wrong. He got his answer when he saw that Raziel was at the entrance to the aerie, ready to pounce on the Sarafan from behind. Kain teleported to Raziel’s side and asked, “What happened up there?”

Raziel pointed a talon at Kain and said, “You knew that I would lead them here.”

“Yes,” Kain said. “But now Janos is alive when he is supposed to be dead. What happened?”

“A madwoman appeared out of nowhere and pushed him off of the balcony,” Raziel said.

Kain didn’t bother to ask if she was still there, but instead teleported up to the balcony. Knowing Raziel, he would rather chase Kain for answers than continue a hopeless fight. The girl was there, guarded by one of the Sarafan. Kain telekinetically threw the Sarafan against the wall, knocking him unconscious.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She stared for a moment, and then began hitting herself with balled-up fists. “This isn’t real. Wake up, wake up.”

  
Kain gazed at her. She was wearing an unspeakably bright shade of pink. Such a color could only be produced through alchemy. There was a deep cut on her shoulder. “I assure you that this is real. Now, who are you and what is your business here?”

“My name is Sarah.” Her breath hitched. “I don’t know how I got here, it’s just a story.”

“The girl is clearly insane.” Raziel had traveled through the spectral realm, making a journey of three minutes take only a moment. “The Sarafan are coming back.”

“Madmen have their uses, Raziel. If this girl can blithely change history at a whim, just imagine the possibilities. But first, we must undo the damage she has caused.” Kain stepped closer to the girl. “Come, that wound will kill you if we don’t find a healer.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kain jogged through the wilderness, carrying Sarah in his arms. Her eyelids fluttered, and Kain feared that she was succumbing to her injury. “How were you wounded?”

“Razel stabbed me,” she muttered.

“I did no such thing,” Raziel complained.

Kain ignored his child. “Sarah, I need you to stay awake. Do you know the names of the Pillars?”

“Ariel, Nupraptor, Mobius, Mortanius, Malek, Bane, Dejoule… Azimuth… Alchemist.”

Kain frowned because it wasn’t the answer he was expecting. “Raziel, did you notice anything strange about her answer?”

“It was the names of the Guardians, not the Pillars, and she forgot Anarcrothe,” Raziel said.

“Six of them are the successors to the Guardians that Vorador killed as revenge for his sire’s death.” Kain was disappointed in Raziel because his child was usually more intelligent when he put forth the effort to think. “If she were from this time, she would not know about them.”

“She stinks of Mobius,” Raziel said.

Kain frowned. It did seem too convenient, especially with how willing she was to go with him. “What do you know about Mobius?”

“He worships a giant evil squid, he really enjoys manipulating Raziel, he gave the Soul Reaver to the Nemesis…” Sarah paused in thought. “He killed Vorador. He and Mortanius led the rebellion against the vampires to take the Pillars.”

“You seem to know a lot about him,” Raziel said.

Kain frowned. “Can you offer a better explanation?”

“It’s like a puppet show done by a machine,” Sarah said after a moment of thought. “It can’t be real. It wasn’t finished and they had to change how it ended.”

“How did it end?” Kain asked.

“Raziel chased you back in time. He was supposed to open the pipes in the cathedral.”

Kain’s frown deepened. “That was a possible outcome.”

“I have seen the beginning and the end of our story, however, and the tale is crude and ill-conceived,” Sarah quoted.

Kain recognized his own words, spoken after he had traveled backwards in time. “I do not want you divulging any of my secrets, but what else do you know?”  
“They keep having to change the ending because they run out of time to make it,” Sarah said. “The next part might not have anything to do with what really happens. They never explained why Vorador was alive when he was supposed to be dead, and Janos turned into a monster.”

Kain assumed that Janos being alive to turn into a monster would have been explained, but he sensed that it wasn’t important. “If your tale becomes too farcical, I shall know to doubt it.”

“What about the Guardians?” Sarah asked. “Isn’t it too late for them to die?”

“If it were a recreation, they probably didn’t bother to mark the passage of time. Vorador does not kill them until tomorrow.” Kain momentarily slowed as he realized that he was gaining new memories. “Their names were not Bane and Dejoule.”

Raziel slowed with Kain. “I remember the stories. You were quite proud of being able to fight both at once.”

“Concentrate, Raziel.” Kain paused to focus on retaining both sets of memories. “You said Anarcrothe a moment ago, but the alchemist’s name was Ecthelion.”

Raziel counted with his talons. “Mobius said that Vorador killed six Guardians, but then he said that six survived.”

“You are remembering two histories. One will fade unless you fight to remember it.” Kain felt confident that he managed to preserve the dead history, so he began to explore the new memory. “It seems that the important details remain the same. We must hurry to make sure that history does not change further.”

While Vorador was glad to see his sire again, he could not help but become enraged at how upset Janos was. He watched helplessly as the ancient vampire paced the room, his wings stirring the air with every turn.

“They drowned our savior,” Janos said. “I was spared, but the Sarafan killed him instead.”

Vorador’s ears twitched. “Wait, you talk as if they were meant to kill you.”

“Redeemer and Destroyer. The signs say that he will be an enemy as well as our salvation. The savior is Raziel. Somehow, there were two of him; one a vampire, and one a Sarafan.” Janos stopped his pacing and his wings drooped. “But now the vampire is dead. I fear that the prophecies have failed.”

“You put too much faith in prophecy,” Vorador spat.

“Those prophecies are the only reason that I have not tried to rejoin the wheel,” Janos retorted. “There is still hope. Another will be called.”

Vorador balled his talons into fists. He wanted to say that the prophecies had already failed, that it was time to stop passively waiting for their salvation to come to them. But Vorador knew his sire’s stubbornness, and an argument now would only upset him further.

Vorador’s thoughts were interrupted by a telepathic whisper from one of his children. “Sire, there is a strange vampire here. He is old, and he has a creature with him. He demands an audience.”

“It seems we have a guest.” Vorador detested the word, but his children would not be able to deter an elder vampire. He would have to deal with the intruder himself.

Within moments the vampire entered the room. Vorador immediately recognized the ring hanging from his ear. Vorador could not see how it was possible since no one would be able to take it from him without his consent.

Janos cried, “Raziel, you’re alive!”

Vorador resisted the urge to grimace. He had no hope of turning Janos’ mind away from prophecy now. But a savior that could return from a water death, even looking like he had been dragged through hell, could possibly be resilient enough to complete whatever task Janos expected of him.

Vorador turned toward the white-haired vampire. “What is your purpose here?”

“My name is Kain. You do not know me yet, but I know you. I require your help in assaulting the Circle.”

“No,” Janos said. “Though they are not competent to serve, their deaths would weaken the binding.”

“Allow me to convince you that it is necessary,” Kain said.

The bundle in Kain’s arms spoke softly, but Vorador’s sensitive ears heard, “Tell him you’re the Scion of Balance.”

“Quiet,” Kain told her. “You will have to forgive my new pet. I have yet to determine if her mind is damaged.”

“Is it true?” Janos asked. “Are you the Scion of Balance?”

“I have not heard the term before,” Kain said. “I have traveled from the future to a time before my birth, and I am a Guardian of Balance.”

Janos nodded. “The Scion of Balance is destined to return the Pillars to vampire guardianship.”

“That is my intention,” Kain said. 

Vorador still hated the prophesies, but he could no longer deny that they were coming true. It pleased him that their salvation wanted him to take revenge on the ones that were killing his kind.


	3. Chapter 3

Vorador had human servants, and they tended to the girl’s wound. While no one knew what a germ looked like, they knew about infection and how to prevent it. Sarah tried not to scream while they cleaned and dressed her wound. Then they gave her mulled wine to drink, offered her food, tucked her into bed, and left her alone. It was only after they left that Sarah had a good cry before falling asleep.

In the dining room, four vampires sat around the table. Vorador and Kain were planning an assault on the Sarafan fortress. Raziel tried to pay attention, but he was growing increasingly distracted as the night wore on. He felt driven, but he wasn’t sure exactly was he was being driven to do.

Janos turned to him. “Raziel, you must retrieve the Reaver. It was forged for you.”

“Now is not the right time,” Kain said. “Mobius is using it as bait, and I do not want Raziel to fall into this trap.”

Raziel sensed that while Kain was not lying, he was also hiding something. He had lost all trust in his sire, but he also felt a sense of relief at being told to stay away from the weapon that had caused him nothing but trouble before. Each time he had touched it, the Soul Reaver bound to his arm and the soul within the physical Reaver would cause a temporal distortion, allowing History to be altered.  
Raziel figured that with the way the girl strained History, introducing further changes would be too dangerous. His loathing for her had begun when he was shoved into the lake, and it only increased from there.

“Are you willing to play your part?” Kain asked Raziel.

“Stay outside of the fortress and cause a distraction?” Despite not having eyeballs, he managed to give the impression that he was rolling his eyes. “I don’t think it matters what I do, as long as I stay out of your way.”

Kain frowned. “If there is something that you would rather be doing…”

Raziel felt itchy. It was like being hungry, but he knew that hunger could no longer drive him to distraction. “I will do it only because the idea of culling their numbers pleases me.”

Kain stood from the table. “If there is nothing further, I wish to check on my pet.”

“I’m coming with you.” Raziel stood as well. “I don’t want you colluding.”

“She’s in the third room to the left.” Vorador glanced at Raziel’s full goblet. “Is my hospitality not up to your standards?”

“Thank you, but I do not drink blood.” Raziel heard Janos sigh, but ignored it. He wasn’t sure how the ancient vampire would react to his current hunger.

As they walked down the hallway, Kain said quietly, “You must stay away from the Reaver until I deem it safe.”

“Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do,” Raziel growled.

When he entered the room, Kain said, “For now, I merely want to know about the past. Let me compare this story of yours to what actually happened.”

Sarah was sitting up in bed. She covered her face and made a whimpering sound. Then she put her hands down, drew a deep breath, and said, “What, no mug of ale for a weary traveler from distant Coorhagen? I can reward you well, for I am of noble blood.”

Kain stiffened. “Those were my last coherent words as a mortal.”

“A clever trick, but it’s meaningless to me,” Raziel said.

“I know you, Raziel. You are worthy,” Sarah said. “What madness is this? What pitiful form is this that I have come to inhabit? Death would be a release, next to this travesty.”

Raziel narrowed his eyes and pointed at Sarah. “Enough of this humiliation. Tell us the parts that we would both know.”

“The Abyss has been unkind?” When Raziel shook his head, Sarah said, “At last, I must say I’m disappointed in your progress.”

“Don’t make things difficult, Raziel,” Kain said. “Your pride has always been a weakness.”

Raziel ignored Kain. “Go back to the days of the empire.”

Sarah shook her head. “The first story is Kain becoming a vampire and refusing the sacrifice. The second story is Raziel being executed and then killing all the brothers except Turel. The third story is Raziel traveling through time. The fourth story is something Kain shouldn’t remember right now. The fifth story is the future.”

“If you are done interfering, Raziel, I would like to have my questions answered,” Kain said.

“Answers indeed. I have them all if you have the questions. And what are the questions for these answers?” Sarah gave a sheepish grin that fell from her face before it reached her eyes. “Oh, no. Every time you turn up something monumental and terrible happens. I don’t think I have the stomach for it.”

They listened to her recital. It was a conversation that happened nearly 700 years into the future. 

“I don’t think they know how to destroy me.” Then she added extra stress to Kain’s words. “You mustn’t underestimate them, Raziel.”

Raziel had dismissed Kain’s warning at the time, but now he was filled with a sense of foreboding. “Do you know how to destroy me?”

Raziel was asking both Kain and Sarah. His sire was silent, but Sarah looked at Kain questioningly. Raziel could tell that she knew, and she knew that Kain knew.

“Was that the trap that you didn’t want me to fall into?” Raziel asked Kain. 

“If you trust me, I can save you from a terrible destiny,” Kain said. “With history derailed, the risk is simply too great right now.”

“You want me to trust you when you won’t even tell me what you’re plotting?” Raziel asked. He turned toward Sarah. “I don’t think that you’re brave enough to keep secrets from me.”

Kain grabbed Raziel’s arm. “For now, she is acting according to my whim. If she lets any more secrets slip, she will regret it.”

Sarah grabbed the pillow from her bed. It was heavy, stuffed with scraps of wool cloth. She buried her face in it and began screaming.

Both Kain and Raziel had tortured many humans over their lifetimes, but had never heard one sound like her. Even muffled, the sheer noise assaulted their ears. It carried on for far too long, only to increase in volume slightly before a pause, and then it began again. After a few minutes, Sarah became completely still and silent.

Then her head popped up. “Sorry about that. I do that when I let myself get upset.”

Kain frowned. The girl smelled human, but the way she acted wasn’t quite right, even for a lunatic. Kain signaled to Raziel that he shouldn’t do anything to stress her.

“Keep your damn secrets. It simply means that I can trust neither of you.” Raziel turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

“He’ll get sucked into the Reaver, right?” Sarah asked. “Why won’t you tell him?”

Kain wasn’t in the habit of explaining his actions, but with what Sarah knew already, it seemed prudent to answer her question. “To be trapped in a sword, slowly losing his mind over the course of a millennia… I would not blame him for being afraid of his destiny. Raziel is not a coward, but he would run from that.”

“Like a bat out of hell,” Sarah commented. She seemed to notice Kain’s confusion. “He’ll panic. You won’t be able to control him. He’ll cause a big mess and end up in the Reaver anyway.”

“Are you now sure that your stories are true?” Kain asked.

Sarah shook her head. “If you lost Raziel, like he disappeared and you couldn’t find him, would you ask Mobius where he was?”

“I would have to be desperate,” Kain said.

Sarah shrugged helplessly. “So you prevented Raziel's soul from entering the Reaver. Do you believe for a moment that by this you have averted your fate? Or his? Or that of Nosgoth itself? Your manipulations are pathetic.”

Kain frowned at the insult. “That does sound like Mobius”

“Every path he might choose leads to the same outcome: He will kill you, Kain. In sparing Raziel, you have written your own death sentence.”

“And does he kill me?” Kain asked incredulously.

“You get better.” Sarah had the decency to look embarrassed.

“You will have to forgive me if I do not rely on this information,” Kain said.

“Of course, it’s Mobutt,” Sarah said. “And that might be where they started making stuff up.”

“I had hoped that I could trap the Reaver’s spirit in a loop and allow Raziel to remain free,” Kain said.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think it works that way,” Sarah said. “I think you should tell him.”


	4. Chapter 4

Raziel hadn’t expected a demon in this time. Though their souls were potent, their hides were also resistant to Raziel’s claws. The spectral blade bound to his arm would want the souls for itself and turn on Raziel if he used it too much. With little option, Raziel used the Soul Reaver, and was surprised that he could now control whether or not the blade fed. He sated himself on the demon’s soul and leapt into a pack of Sarafan. As they fell to the Soul Reaver, their souls hung in the air until he willed the sword to feed.

Raziel perched on a ruined wall and contemplated the Soul Reaver. It was still deranged, but it felt calmer now, like its experience had broken the spirit. Raziel wondered what it could have gone through in the new timeline, and his mistrust for the girl deepened.

The thrill of battle had calmed Raziel and allowed him to focus on the moment, but now his thoughts were becoming muddled again. He felt if he would snap if he remained still for too long. No matter, there was an army of Sarafan to kill, and it would be easy now that his weapon was cooperative.

Kain was unused to being afraid. Even though he was confident that he would survive, it was still hard to walk into a trap. He could see no other way to retrieve the Reaver, and he did not want it out of his control for much longer. There was no telling what Mobius would decide to do with it.

Kain marched into the room where the Reaver should have been, but it was suspiciously absent. Kain was about to leave when another door opened. He collapsed in pain as he felt a constriction around his heart.

Mobius glared down at him. “You should have brought her. I might not have seen you coming.”

Kain grimaced both in pain and embarrassment at his foolishness. Of course the Time Guardian would notice a force that could disrupt history.

“Don’t you realize how dangerous that girl is?” Mobius asked. “She is ripping the very fabric of time with her presence. It is a wonder that she didn’t erase you completely.”  
Kain tried to speak, but the pain in his chest prevented him. He sent out a mental call for help.

Raziel could not spare a thought for the carnage left in his wake. Sarafan Knights, Demons, even the occasional hapless peasant fell to his blade. Raziel laughed and wondered if he was becoming as deranged as his weapon.

Then Raziel heard Kain telepathically call for help. Though Raziel had no love for his sire, he wanted to be the one to kill him. Raziel shifted into the spectral realm and began running. Sluagh growled in alarm, but Raziel ran past before any of them could react. He found a portal and returned to the material realm.

Raziel found Kain quickly. Mobius was brandishing his staff while the Sarafan were trying to hack Kain’s chest open with an axe. 

Raziel grabbed Mobius’ staff and said, “You can only have this back if I decide to give it to you.” With that, Raziel ran through the fortress until he reached a battlement. With an unrestrained leap, Raziel crashed through the ice on the frozen lake below. He floated a moment to recover his wits, and then pushed the staff into the mud at the bottom.

Meanwhile, Kain recovered enough of his strength to stand. He grabbed the nearest Sarafan warrior and bit into his neck. In a moment, the warrior was dead. He smirked as he realized their destinies would not protect them now. The room was small, hampering their movements, so they ran after Kain killed two more of them. Kain paused to notice that Melchiah, Zephon, and Dumah were now dead.

Kain called out to the empty room. “Mobius, if you can hear me, I suggest that you surrender the Reaver. If you do not, you will not live another five centuries.”

Part of Janos’ patience was that he knew how to simply exist. He could spend weeks at a time observing without thinking, waiting for time to pass until he needed to rouse himself to feed. Janos was happy to help the Scion of Balance in any way he could, but babysitting Sarah was a dull way to spend a day. Kain had brought her to the library and set her to the task of writing down everything that she knew. 

Janos did not know what to make of her. Kain had hinted that she might be crazy, and Janos certainly believed that it was possible. From the moment she first saw him, she hadn’t seemed afraid. She must have known his reputation since she spoke his name, but then she ran straight to him as if he couldn’t rip out her throat in an instant.

Sarah worked until she had filled a stack of papers. This was Kain’s journey as a fledgeling. Sarah stood up, yawned, stretched, and wandered around the library for a moment. She frowned as she recognized the room and got confirmation that Vorador did not live inside a giant Reaver-based puzzle. 

Instead of settling back down to work, Sarah asked, “Can I ask you some questions?”

Janos welcomed the distraction. He was growing concerned about whether Kain was doing the right thing. “Ask them.”

“Do you know what the elemental shrines are for?”

Janos frowned. “Their secrets are not for you to know.”

Sarah bit her lip then said, “What about the prophecies?”

“Are you a seer?” Janos asked pointedly.

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think so. Someone else wrote the story.”

“Think very carefully about your next question,” Janos warned.

After a moment, Sarah asked. “Why is their name Unspoken?”

“We had hoped that they would be forgotten,” Janos said.

“Thank you.” Sarah sat down and began writing again.

Janos wondered what secrets had been divulged to the girl. The last question concerned him because it showed that his ancient enemy was still in living memory. “What do you know about the prophecies?”

“Kain doesn’t want me telling secrets. Let me think a moment.” Sarah pulled a clean sheet of paper out of the stack. “You were at war, and it ended when you banished the unspoken? You were standing in a citadel West of the pillars at the time?”

Janos felt that answering yes or no questions would provide him with more information than he would have to divulge. “Yes and yes.”

“The Pillars are the lock, and the Reaver is the key. You figured out how to pass the curse to Vorador. Vorador made the sword, and then you infused it with vampiric energy.” Sarah jotted down the information as Janos confirmed it. “You tried to turn the human Pillar guardians, but they rebelled.”

“I had already left,” Janos said.

“So Dark Ones,” Sarah said.

“Do not call us that,” Janos growled.

“Their name for you? Sorry.” Sarah rolled the pen in her fingers.

Janos stood and stalked across the room. “How do you know so much about them?”

Sarah felt that she might have let something slip again. “It was fiction about what would happen if they ever got out.”

“The presence of the Scion of Balance means that the Binding was in peril,” Janos said.

Sarah thought about how the binding failing was indirectly what caused Kain to become a vampire. “Maybe everything but these details is fiction. Do you know about the murals in the shrines?”

“I was told that there would be murals, but not their contents,” Janos said. “How do you know about them?”

“Raziel’s journey through them was illustrated, but it could have been embellished.” Sarah grabbed another piece of paper and began sketching. “Is there a fire shrine in your home? Can I see it? I don’t think there were any murals in there, though.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was late afternoon in Vorador’s manor. He arrived in the blaze of a sanctuary spell and stumbled. The skin on his leg had already re-grown to cover the deep cut, but it wasn’t quite healed. Despite only just escaping with his life, he felt happy.

He telepathically whispered to his sire about his success, and mentioned that he wanted to change clothes before meeting face to face. Janos’ reply came with a distracted tone.  
Vorador didn’t have time to wonder before Kain telepathically announced his own arrival. Vorador winced and made a note to talk to him about his volume.

A half hour later, three vampires and a human were gathered in the library. Kain was frowning at the sheathe of papers that Sarah had presented him with. He also disliked how enthusiastically she and Janos were discussing on the other side of the room.

He stood up and walked over to the pair. “Sarah, are you following my instructions?”

“Well about that…” Sarah said nervously. “I’m not doing anything that you wouldn’t want me to do. It’s just that the fifth story is almost nothing but lies and deceptions that were meant to confuse the audience as much as the heroes. Instead of writing it down, I got Janos to give me a history lesson first.”

“She has not told me anything true that I did not already know,” Janos said. “Some of the liberties taken by the author of that fiction are appalling.”

“Yes, it seems that in between the truths are a pack of madman’s ravings.” Kain threw the sheath of papers towards an alcove. “See for yourself, Raziel.”

Vorador had been watching the drama as if it were a very bad play put on for his amusement, but he wondered how the ghoul had gotten into his home without him noticing.

Raziel ignored the sheath of papers as he strode forward from the shadows. “Enough mysteries. I want to know everything. The Reaver was never meant to be a soul-stealing weapon, was it?”

“Why would you think that, Raziel?” Janos asked.

Raziel drew the Soul Reaver. Janos gasped in shock while Vorador stood closer with interest. “Sire, that looks like…”

“It can’t be,” Janos said. “I must have misread the signs.”

“What does it mean?” Raziel demanded.

“I am not sure,” Janos said.

“All that matters is that he is the instrument of our salvation,” Kain said.

“Yes, listen to Kain, he knows what’s going on.” Sarah stumbled to the table. “Let’s just all sit down and do some breathing.”

Kain watched the exaggerated way she demonstrated her breathing. While it was better than her getting upset and screaming, it annoyed Kain that the girl knew how to get drunk on air. “Stop that, or I shall choke the giddiness from you.”

“Those blind with rage are by destiny ensnared,” Sarah quoted as she sat down. “That’s the problem with Raziel. He has a choice and keeps doing things without thinking when he’s angry.”

Raziel turned to Kain. “Is anything she says to be trusted?”

“While it seems that she cannot tell truth from fiction, there are truths in her tale,” Kain said. “Sarah, what do you hope to accomplish here?”

“I just want to go back to my world,” Sarah said. “When it was just three stories, I wanted to save Janos. Some video games branch, and you can get different endings depending on what buttons you push. Legacy of Kain isn’t that sort of game. When the fifth game came out, the only way to save him is to kill him.”

“We will not be taking any action on your say-so,” Kain said.

“Yeah, I’m screwed,” Sarah noticed that the vampires didn’t understand her slang. “Doomed? I’m probably going to die here.” She drew a shuddering breath, desperate to stay calm.

“Raziel, I have told you that dark powers are allied against you,” Janos said. “Perhaps they have done something to pervert your destiny.”

“My path is clear,” Raziel said. “The sword I bear is my own soul, released from the Reaver after centuries of imprisonment.”

“About the prophecies,” Sarah said. “The story is confusing enough when you can see Raziel on the stage, but they couldn’t? Who’s to say how much of the prophecies were just wishful thinking?”

“I have viewed the streams of time, and it is nearly impossible to view Raziel’s actions directly,” Kain said. “Some of the vaguest prophecies may be as precise as the oracles could make them.”

“Then we must discover which prophecies were made by our god,” Janos said. “He would not be fallable.”

“I think The Wheel of Fate still talks to Raziel,” Sarah said. “Let him figure out what to do.”

“If he has displeased our god in any way, he may not survive.” Janos fingered the ouroboros around his neck. “Kain, only the Scion of Balance can open the outer chamber. You must find the fragments of the Balance Emblem.”


	6. Chapter 6

Raziel and Sarah stayed in the library while the others left. “Do you really expect me to take guidance from the Wheel of Fate?”

“Hopefully that’s ridiculous,” Sarah said. “It’s a giant squid and you don’t seem to like it.”

“They wouldn’t have believed you if you told them about it.” Raziel picked up the sheathe of papers. “Are there any more secrets that you’re omitting?”

“The Soul Reaver was the big one,” Sarah said. “I’m glad Kain told you.”

“He didn’t,” Raziel spat. “He was keeping me ignorant of my fate so he could catch me unawares. I figured it out on my own.”

“He needs to learn how to trust you,” Sarah said angrily. “What the hell is he thinking?”

“Should he trust me?” Raziel asked. “What prophecies were you all referring to?”

“Janos thinks that the enemy race will also have a champion, and he might destroy the vampire champion if the vampire champion doesn’t destroy him.”

“And the truth?” Raziel asked.

“It’s a mess. Forget about the prophecies.” Sarah said. “You do help them, but that means there isn’t a vampire champion unless it’s just you playing pawn for all sides. The squid said you were the enemy’s champion, but it wants you to kill Kain. Turel did more for them before you put him out of his misery.”

Raziel looked down at the sheathe of papers again. “Kain said that not all if this was true.”

“Well, you should be able to figure out how close it is,” Sarah said. “I’ll write down your last words. The story ended with you going into the Reaver willingly, but I can’t be sure why you would do that.”

Raziel read while Sarah wrote. There were parts of narration that sounded overly ornate, conversations that he recognized, and parts that seemed almost familiar. Sarah had called his story a game, and Raziel’s youngest brothers had also invented a game that was part story and part riddles. He could make sense of all of it, though some was surely creative license. 

Sarah was done writing. As Raziel grabbed the new papers, he looked at what she was drawing. It was from a mural in one of the elemental shrines.

Raziel read. It was a continuation of his story as if his Sarafan self had been able to kill Janos. He killed his Sarafan brethren and himself before almost becoming trapped within the Reaver, but Kain saved him at the last second. Then the story skipped to how he would purify the Soul Reaver with the spirits of the former Balance Guardians, and how he came to understand that by sacrificing himself, he could give Kain the power to hurt the parasite that controlled all fates. He could not see how Sarah could have written this and then claim to not know why he would go willingly into the sword.

“Is this a trick?” Raziel demanded?

“It might not be real,” Sarah said. “If you believe it and want to run from your destiny, go ahead. You can prolong your own suffering as long as you want.”

“And what do you have to gain from my suffering?” Raziel asked. “Do you want revenge for hurting you when I was human?”

“I’ll be fine.” Sarah covered the bandage with her hand. “He’s dead now, anyway.”

“He still lives,” Raziel said. “The paradox is giving me a headache.”

Sarah frowned. “Well if you want to erase your existence…”

“I do not,” Raziel said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I do not need another manipulator.”

Raziel summoned the Reaver and plunged it into Sarah’s chest. He willed it to take her soul, but it rebelled. Raziel stepped closer with Sarah transfixed on the blade. There was fear in her eyes, but she didn’t seem to be in pain. Raziel dismissed the Soul Reaver, and Sarah fell to the ground.

“It trusts you,” Raziel said. “That means that some day, I will learn to trust you.”

Sarah took deep breaths and shuddered as she tried to regain control of her emotions. Raziel felt his own emotions brimming to the limits of his control, so he turned on his heel and left to deal with them alone.

Kain knew that he was likely on a fool’s errand, but it would give him some much-needed time to collect his thoughts. Unaware of what Raziel had tried to do to Sarah, he asked for any insight she could give him before he left.

“The world isn’t a giant puzzle,” Sarah said. “If Janos didn’t mention it, I would have assumed that the Balance Emblem was something that they made up. Do you really think that Mobius would put the first piece in William’s Chapel for you to find?”

Kain wasn’t quite sure what Mobius would do, except that it would be a trick to further his plans. He had been about to say as much when he found that he didn’t need to.

“Raziel might have to go in there eventually, but the point of you unlocking the door was so that the squid could trick you into getting yourself killed,” Sarah said. “At least I think Raziel would have said something if the squid wasn’t real.”

To Kain, making a connection between an ancient religion and the thing manipulating Mobius seemed like a madman’s fever dream, or a bad storyteller trying to weave too tight of a web between scraps of disparate myths. One could just as easily assume that the cult of Hash’a’Gik had anything to do with the Unspoken enemy that possessed Mortanious. 

“I doubt that Raziel actually knows what a squid is,” Kain said. “He never seemed to take an interest in extinct fauna from the edge of the world.”


	7. Chapter 7

It had been a week since Raziel stabbed Sarah. He had resolved the paradoxes that made it so hard to think, and then spent the remaining time trying to figure out why his sword trusted her. If his deranged soul was even capable of remembering, it could not communicate anything resembling a reason. There was nothing to do but seek the girl out and allow her the chance to earn that trust.

Vorador had told Raziel that Sarah was moved to Janos’ aerie. The wards still were back up and still allowed Raziel to pass, but this time they locked themselves behind him. Raziel admired the internal balconies and wished that his wings still worked so he could use them as intended.

Janos was absent, but Sarah was waiting for him. “You’re not going to stab me again, are you?” 

Raziel shook his head. “I apologize. I won’t let it happen again.” He noticed something off. “Are you, changing?”

“Janos turned me two nights ago,” Sarah said. “It’s your fault though. A germ got into the cut on my shoulder and it started eating my nerves. I lost the use of my arm and I could barely breathe by the time I convinced Janos that I didn’t want to join the Wheel.”

“So I can expect some form of retribution for your current predicament,” Raziel said.

“There’s nothing I can do to you, and I hate it when you get paranoid.” Sarah held out her right hand. “No hard feelings.”

Raziel gently clasped Sarah’s delicate hand in his massive talon. “You forgive me so easily?”

“Yeah. I could try to teach you how to do it, and maybe how to control your temper, too.” Sarah looked at him sadly. “Being angry all of the time can’t feel good.”

“You needn’t care for my feelings,” Raziel said. “Have you discovered any more secrets for me?”

“Maybe?” Sarah said. “It really depends on what you want to happen.”

“What I want?” Raziel asked. “By delaying the death of my former self, I nearly erased myself from existence. I do not want to take a risk like that again.”

“I think you’re pretty safe, now. The way the fifth game ended, Kain would have had to use time travel to get the Reaver back on its path,” Sarah said. “There’s time. You would have spent five centuries moping about your fate. If I’m careful, I’ll have those five centuries to tease out every fiber of what doesn’t need to happen.”

“And you think that’s a long time?” Raziel asked.

“Give me a break, I’m a fledgling.” Sarah pouted. “If you promise not to fly off the handle, I’ll show you my notes from the rest of the games.”

“Please mind your colloquialisms,” Raziel said. “What does fly off of the handle mean?”

Sarah frowned in thought. “I always imagined a woodcutter’s axe. It means don’t go causing chaos just because you’re mad. I want you to stay calm and think before you do anything. That’s the only way you’ll be able to use that free will of yours.”

Sarah led Raziel into a hallway. It was littered with scraps of paper held down by pebbles. She pointed to one pile in particular. “There’s some prophecies mixed in, but that’s every time you did something wrong when you were mad.”

“I am capable of controlling my anger,” Raziel said. “When I served Kain, do you think that he would have tolerated an outburst like yours from me?”

Raziel didn’t know what Sarah was imagining, but she giggled before the smile fell from her face. “Yikes.”

Raziel read while Sarah puttered with her notes. At first, he was confused because the papers were stacked in the opposite order of events. Then Raziel understood why she had him work backwards from result to cause. Mobius was far too happy with the outcome described, and Raziel became even more interested in how it would happen.

Raziel flung the papers away from him, causing them to tear loose from the thread that bound them together.

Sarah looked at him. “Can I teach you some calming techniques? It’s like being able to fall asleep while staying awake.”

“I will try anything to make me harder to manipulate,” Raziel spat.

Sarah directed him to try and get comfortable in a contorted sitting position, and then she tried to get him to breathe despite his lungs no longer being able to draw air. But listening to her monotonously speak instructions for half an hour did have a calming effect on Raziel.

“Clench your claws a few times, and when you’re ready, stand up,” Sarah said as she unfolded her legs and unsteadily got to her feet.

Raziel stood up. The experience did feel dreamlike.

Sarah frowned. “Cluck like a chicken.”

Raziel didn’t know what a chicken was, but making an attempt seemed reasonable. “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

Raziel jumped in alarm as Sarah clapped her hands right in front of his face. Suddenly he was not relaxed at all. Then he wondered why he had followed an instruction that seemed designed to make him look foolish.

“That’s a problem,” Sarah said. “You’re suggestable.”

Raziel still didn’t understand what had happened to him. “Is there a way to remove the problem?”

“It’s beyond my knowledge. If it makes you feel any better, hypnotised people can’t be made to do things that they really don’t want to do,” Sarah said. “People can get into states where they don’t mind being in pain, but they have to decide that they’re willing to endure it.”

Raziel decided that it was time to change the subject. “Why do you still retain your humanity?”

“Janos says that it takes a while for the physical changes,” Sarah said. “For now, I just have the bloodlust and the vulnerabilities. I don’t even heal very quickly.”

“And how do you feel about his death?” Raziel asked.

“I’d rather see him dead than tortured,” Sarah said. “I already tried talking to him about it, and he’s more upset that the binding will fail.”

Raziel balled his talons into fists. “Why am I surrounded by people who are so calm about dying?”

“They don’t know that they’re going to be squid food,” Sarah said. “Knowing that the afterlife here sucks made it easier to make my choice.”

“Sucks?” Raziel asked.

Sarah made a very suggestive gesture with her hand and mouth.

“You say that as if it was a bad thing,” Raziel smirked with his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

It was dusk when a cloud of bats gathered on Janos’ balcony and resolved into Kain. He strode into the room and announced, “I have found the citadel you described, Janos, but it seems that there aren’t any fragments of the Balance Emblem.”

“That is disappointing,” Janos said. “Our seers were confident that you would find them when the time was right.”

“They underestimated our enemies,” Kain said. “Still, it would be useful to know more about what’s expected of me.”

“You are fortunate. I had not memorized those prophecies, but I read them at Sarah’s request,” Janos said.

Kain frowned at the name. “I hope that you’re not allowing that girl to manipulate you. I still do not trust her intentions.”

“I read her mind when I turned her,” Janos said. “She knows not to trust what she has been told, and her intentions are pure.”

Kain didn’t care whether Sarah was human, vampire, or something else… just as long as she could still be used if he saw the need to change history again. “What have you discovered?”

“They say that the Scion of Balance will unite with the souls of the previous Balance Guardians,” Janos said.

Raziel entered the room, followed by Sarah. “It’s about time you showed up. We have some questions.”

“Will you trust the answers if I give them to you?” Kain asked.

“Is it true that our destinies run together?” Raziel asked.

“Yes,” Kain said. “The choices that you make affect me as much as you, and what little choice I have affects us both.”

“Why?” Raziel asked.

“It has always been so,” Kain said. “Your fate is circular. It’s impossible to tell if there was ever an instigating event.”

“It makes things a lot easier if we stop caring about who does what to save the world,” Sarah told Janos.

“It makes one thing easier,” Janos muttered. “I will not try to take the Reaver back from you, Kain.”

“Thank you, Janos. You will not regret it.” Kain gave a slight bow.

Janos had been disturbed to learn that Kain owned the Reaver for over a millennium, but Raziel convinced him that it was for the best, and that it would be all but impossible to take the sword away by force.

“It also means that the weight of the world is on my shoulders,” Raziel said. “I will be the one who has to die for the fate of Nosgoth.”

“I have not given up hope that the both of us can live,” Kain said.

“The prophecies said that the vampire champion and the Hylden champion would fight to the death,” Janos said.

“Yeah, ignore that,” Sarah said. “Raziel goes up against himself a couple of times.”

“I doubt that he could kill his human counterpart,” Janos said.

“Already done,” Raziel said. “I had been dead for centuries before Kain raised me.”

“Please do not take offense, but it is a relief that he will no longer harass me,” Janos said.

“You know who I was?” Raziel wished that the ground would swallow him.

“I’m not stupid,” Janos said. “Your voice hasn’t changed.”

“Even though I don’t remember a thing, I apologize,” Raziel said.

“So Kain and Raziel will not be fighting each other?” Janos asked.

“Not again if they know what's good for them. It’s what the squid wants, and the squid is the darkest of dark forces,” Sarah said.

Kain rolled his eyes. “Do you still believe in that?”

“It’s some form of aquatic monster, and squid is as good a name as any. Sarah’s drawings do not capture its true appearance, though,” Raziel said. “It was there to greet me at the bottom of the Abyss.”

Kain grabbed Raziel by the shoulders and shook him. “You knew about the grand manipulator and didn’t say anything?”

Raziel knocked Kain’s claws away. “It’s some sort of compulsion to help it stay hidden. I had not even realized that it was influencing me in that way.”

“I want to know everything,” Kain growled.

“It claims to have resurrected me, but that might be a lie,” Raziel said. “What I do know is that it hates vampires. You most of all, Kain.”

“The Hylden created monsters during the war,” Janos said. “Maybe it is something that they left behind.”

“It called itself the Wheel of Fate,” Sarah said.

Janos recoiled as if struck. “It cannot be.”

“We don’t exactly have any proof,” Sarah said. “Why did the war with the Hylden start?”

“The Hylden’s very existence was blasphemous,” Janos said. “They would not submit to the Wheel of Fate.”

“Were they immortal?” Sarah asked. “Isn’t that why your god stopped talking to you?”

“They were doing many unnatural things,” Janos said. “And our god did cast his sight from us when he could no longer purify our souls in the cycle of death and rebirth.”

Raziel spoke gently. “It sounds like the same thing.”

“I cannot accept this.” Janos strode across the room. “I will return by dawn.”

“What does it ultimately want?” Kain asked.

“One of its self-appointed titles is the Devourer of Death,” Raziel said. “I think that it wants conflict so that it can feed like an enormous parasite.”

“Do you know anything that Raziel wouldn’t?” Kain asked Sarah.

“I don’t think so,” Sarah said. “It has a cavern near Ziegsturhl, unless that’s just something the storytellers decided to add for fun.”

“I’m sure that it exists in many places,” Raziel said.

“The question is what to do about it,” Kain said.

“It’s only been a year since the fifth game came out, so I don’t know what happens next,” Sarah said. “Raziel’s sacrifice lets you hurt it, but you don’t kill it.”

“And that won’t be happening until I’m sure that I’ve done everything else that I need to,” Raziel said.

“So what do you want to work on tonight?” Sarah asked. “The Hylden’s plan, or what the forges are really for?”

“I believe that the forges are just as Janos said; a way to enhance their weapons,” Raziel said. “And as you said, they were in the game as an excuse to include puzzles.”

Sarah pouted. “But why would they lock them so they would only open for the Reaver?”

“I think that perhaps Sarah is right,” Kain said. “I once found one of those shrines, and while the physical Reaver could open the door, the forge did nothing to the blade. It seems that someone knew about the weapon you would bear.”

“Just, if you find a forge that’s powered by the souls of the original guardians, make sure you do them all before going to the inner sanctum,” Sarah said. “I know you said that the other forges weren’t puzzles, but it seems important.”

“Which element is the inner sanctum tied to?” Kain asked.

“Spirit,” Sarah said. “It called Ariel and her predecessors.”

“Janos just told me that I would be united with the souls of the previous Balance Guardians,” Kain said.

“Can the Reaver act as a phylactery?” Sarah asked. “Like how Ottmar’s wizards were able to get the princess’s soul back out of the doll?”

“I had almost forgotten about that story,” Raziel said. “I hadn’t realized that you didn’t simply make it up.”

“Elzevir was real. It wasn’t one of my finest moments.” Kain frowned. “I do not know if Raziel’s blade can hold other souls without destroying them.”

Sarah shrugged. “Plenty of time to figure it out, then.”

“You mentioned something about the Hylden’s plan,” Kain said. “Is there more to it than bringing down the Pillars?”

Janos had chosen that moment to alight silently on the balcony. “You must not let them succeed.”

“I’m afraid that it is inevitable,” Kain said. “The consequences of preventing it would be too great.”

“Trouble is, why didn’t they do anything?” Sarah asked. “If they could possess Turel, they could have destroyed your empire from the inside. Why did they have to wait for a timeline where Janos was un-killed?”

Kain stared hard at Janos.

“If I am indeed the lynchpin in their plans, then I will do what must be done,” Janos said.

“First, is there some sort of stone that can protect someone from the Reaver?” Sarah asked.

Janos shook his head, and Kain said, “Not literally.”

“So the fourth game is probably ridiculous. Part of it was that they needed the blood of an original vampire to feed their psychic genocide monster,” Sarah said.

“The Mass,” Janos said. “We did what we could to cripple the device, but we didn’t know how to kill it.”

“Is its builder in the Eternal Prison?” Sarah asked.

“It seems that there is truth in that fiction,” Janos said.

“When did the Hylden possess Turel?” Kain asked.

“I blame Azimuth,” Sarah said. “He was trapped in Avernus and the Hylden were using him as the mouthpiece of Hash’a’Gik.”

“In her madness, she weakened the boundaries between this world and others,” Kain said. 

“When you chose to destroy the Pillar of Balance, you caused a rift throughout the world, sufficient to breach through the dimensions,” Sarah quoted in Janos’ accent. “That’s when it happened. He mentioned needing a more durable vessel than a mortal. That Hylden then built a gateway to let the others through.”

“That does not explain why he would specifically need me,” Janos said.

Raziel said, “Because you would have been the only vampire alive at that moment, save for myself and Kain.”

“I guess that means we can’t save William,” Sarah said.

“I would not have you interfere with that event for any reason,” Kain said. “As much as I hated falling for Moebius’ trap, the secret that I learned was worth the price. Do not worry, if you are still useful to me in the future, I shall ensure that you miss the genocide.”

“That’s the nicest thing I expect you to say to me,” Sarah said.

Janos frowned even as Kain and Raziel both chuckled. “How can you be so callous?”

“I learned it from Vorador,” Kain said.

Janos drew back in shock, but Sarah grabbed his talon and led him from the room. “I’m sorry I made them laugh.”

“Did you intend it as a joke?” Janos asked.

“Dark humor for dark times, but it was more a comment about how Kain is incapable of compassion,” Sarah said. “They’ve both been through a lot.”

“That does not excuse what Kain said to you,” Janos said.

Sarah quirked her head. “That thing about only saving me if I’m useful? Giving a damn about me at all means that he likes me more than his own children. Raziel was Kain’s firstborn and it’s Kain’s fault that he looks like that.”

“He’s a monster, isn’t he?” Janos couldn’t help but let the disappointment show in his voice.

“They’re on your side,” Sarah said. “I think that despite their personality flaws, Kain and Raziel are exactly what’s needed. Maybe it’s even because they’re such bastards.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sarah's actually from the summer of 2005, she just didn't notice Defiance until spring of 2004. I might screw up the pop culture references later, but she doesn't know about Nosgoth or Dead Sun or how Dark Prophecy got cancelled.


	9. Chapter 9

While Janos had long ago abandoned anything resembling a circadian rhythm, having a fledgling reminded him that others obeyed the desire to sleep. He crept silently from his chambers to the balcony, unable to still his mind enough to even give the illusion that he was unconscious.

Janos saw Raziel lying on the balcony chest-down, the strange flaps of skin on his back catching the breeze. 

“You almost seem to enjoy the sunshine,” Janos said.

“It hasn’t hurt me for a long time,” Raziel said. “In fact, it seems to be the only thing that can warm me now.”

“I remember when sunning ourselves was vital,” Jaons said. “I’ve never been burned the way Vorador and the others were, but now exposure increases my thirst.”

“Consider yourself lucky.” Raziel sat up. “Sunlight is one of the more painful ways to die. It is fortunate that I’m not as delicate as your descendants, or I would not have seen my first century.”

Janos merely frowned at the flippant disregard for death. “Last night, I was told that Kain is to blame for your current appearance.”

Raziel tensed as if physically struck. “Yes.”

Janos waited for two minutes before saying, “I will not press you if you don’t want to speak of it.”

“Wait.” Raziel stood and clenched his claws. His whole body managed to communicate the misery that he could not show with his face. “When I grew wings, I thought that Kain would be happy with my gift. Instead, he ripped the bones from my back, leaving just these tattered flaps of skin. And then he had my brothers throw me into the Abyss. I burned for what felt like forever, and this is what I became when I finally came to rest on the bottom.”

“Why?” Janos asked.

“Kain doesn’t bother to explain himself. Even if he did, I could never be sure if he knew what would happen, or if he was simply jealous,” Raziel said. “I hate him with every fiber of my being. The only reason he’s still alive is that I don’t want my vengeance tainted with someone else’s will.”

Janos growled low in his throat. “Such a terrible person. How could the Pillar of Balance choose him?”

“Kain’s predecessor, Ariel, and Nupraptor, Guardian of Mind, were lovers. When Ariel was murdered, Nupraptor went mad with grief and it spread to the rest of the Circle,” Raziel said. “According to Kain, they began to abuse their powers then.”

Janos’ wings twitched in response to his anxiety. “Something must be done.” 

“There’s nothing that I can do. It’s my history. If I make too great of a change, I may cease to exist,” Raziel said. “Has Sarah told you every detail about your missed appointment with death?”

Janos brushed his talon over his chest. “I do not believe that it is my heart beating in Kain’s body.”

“What matters is if Kain believes it,” Raziel said. “He will take it by force if he feels he has to.”

Janos’ mind reeled with despair. The fate of the world was in the hands of two monsters, and they professed powerlessness in the face of the greatest calamities that could happen. “Tell me the events that you cannot change.” Janos desperately clung to the hope that all his centuries of waiting hadn’t been for nothing.

Looking back, Janos could only recall that day as a blur. Raziel told tales of a land where the slow decline caused by the damaged Pillars seemed normal, and later of a vampiric paradise where the sun was forever obscured by smoke and the humans were kept as livestock.

At some point, Kain had wandered from his room and added his own perspective. He spoke of how he managed to keep the tensions between the clans from erupting into civil war for a thousand years, and then how spectacularly his empire had fallen apart once he released his control.

Sarah had come out at sunset, and her questions belied a morbid fascination with how the world would fall apart. By then, Janos simply listened because he could not understand enough to form questions of his own anymore.

“You should know that Melchiah wasn’t actually as weak as you believe,” Kain told Raziel. “His frailty was because he tried to push beyond his limits and went too far. Rahab was doing the same thing, and he succeeded because he was more patient.”

“What about my clan?” Raziel asked. “If you destroyed me in some bid to save to world, why did they have to die as well?”

“It wasn’t as if I ordered their destruction,” Kain said. “I abandoned the empire that day, and your brothers felt that they were anticipating my wishes. A few emerged from hiding a few centuries later, but they did not survive the war with the humans.”

“That does beg the question of who we’re saving the world for,” Raziel spat. “All that was left of the empire were packs of deranged beasts.”

“That is quite enough.” Janos stood, but the room spun and he met the floor hard.

Kain roughly grabbed him and shoved his wrist into Janos’ face. “Have you been neglecting your own needs while suckling your newest child?”

Janos pushed him away. “All these years of waiting, and it was for nothing? My life has been tortuously long, and now I know that after it is over, the world will spend at least that long in its death-throes?”

“And then be reborn,” Kain growled. “I had not planned that far ahead, but I imagine that our visions of an ideal world are not so dissimilar.”

“You consider my god as your greatest enemy,” Janos said. “You might as well try to rule over the Hylden.”

Janos woke in his bed and he couldn’t recall how he had gotten there. His head ached, and his memories were fragmented. His species didn’t have a way to get drunk, so the effects of recreational poison were not something he was familiar with.

Vorador said, “You gave them quite a scare.”

Janos craned his neck, but his child was behind him. “What happened?”

“You got angry,” Vorador said.

“Was anyone hurt?” Janos asked.

“Only Kain’s pride,” Vorador said. “He claims that he hasn’t had to run from a fight since he was a fledgling.”


	10. Chapter 10

Raziel found Sarah pacing around Vorador’s east-wing library. “What is wrong?”

“Hi,” Sarah said. “I’m having trouble figuring out what I should try to figure out next.”

“What is there to figure out?” Raziel wondered why Sarah would say ‘high’ to greet someone, but it didn’t seem important.

“I could rebuild my notes here, but Kain’s probably going to move me again because Moebius might notice that I’m here and attack,” Sarah said. “It’s so much easier to figure out what I’m not thinking about when I can get it out of my head.”

“Why not relax?” Raziel asked. “You’ve said yourself that we have five centuries that I would have squandered.” 

“Do you know what people do for fun around here?” Sarah asked. “I’m too anxious to read and everything else I like runs on electricity.”

“What is electricity?” Raziel asked.

Sarah took a moment to think. “Lightning controlled by math. I would say it’s like magic, but magic isn’t real in my world and I have no idea how it works here.”

“I don’t see how anything can be controlled by math,” Raziel said.

“In my world, the chances of a coin landing on one side or the other aren’t even. The design makes it unbalanced, and math can predict how it falls,” Sarah said. “Math can then give that description to a machine and it can spend seconds calculating the results of thousands of coin-flips.”

“And how often does a coin land on its edge?” Raziel asked.

Sarah laughed. “I don’t know, but if I had access to the internet I could get you the answer in a few minutes.”

Raziel sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. The point is that you have no purpose at the moment, except for one.”

Sarah stared at Raziel. “You have something for me to do?”

“Yes,” Raziel shouted triumphantly. “You can learn to control your dark gift.”

“What, eating people?” Sarah asked. “I really appreciate that you brought me someone, and broke all his limbs so he couldn’t fight back… I’m sorry that I apologized to him before draining all his blood…”

“I’m disappointed in your squeamishness, but I’ve seen worse,” Raziel said. “What I mean is that you’ve manifested a power that I’ve only seen in Kain.”

A half hour later in the courtyard, Sarah was clinging to the top of a wall like a cat who was resisting a bath. “Back off! I know what you’re trying to do, I know what you expect me to do, it’s just like mom teaching me to ride a bike, and I know how that went!”

Raziel did back off and sat on the high ledge. “I felt you become as light as a book when I jumped from Janos’ balcony with you in my arms. You know how to resist falling.”

“And I only learned how to ride a bike when mom left me to figure it out for myself,” Sarah said. “By the time she could afford the training wheels, I didn’t need them.”

“What is a bike?” Raziel asked.

“It’s a thing with two wheels and once you figure it out you don’t forget how it goes,” Sarah said. “It’s one of those things where you don’t need to know that it runs on math to make it work.”

“And math runs on electricity,” Raziel said.

“No, you can do math without electricity, it’s just slow,” Sarah said. “I could probably tell the right craftsman how to build a bicycle. Math just describes why it works.”

“Who would be the right craftsmen?” Raziel asked.

“My first instinct is blacksmiths because bikes are made out of metal, but really you need someone who understands pullies because of how the gears work.” Sarah was interrupted by Raziel unceremoniously throwing her off of the wall. She managed to float to a soft landing. “What in the ever-loving fuck?”

Raziel glided down to land beside her. “That sounded blasphemous.” 

“I just come from a culture where sex is the most shocking thing,” Sarah said. “Why the hell did you just push me off the wall?”

“Because you were stalling,” Raziel said.

“I was waiting for you to leave me alone,” Sarah said. “Didn’t I tell you that I would figure it out myself?”

“Not directly,” Raziel said.

“Fine,” Sarah said. “You can help me by locking your fingers like this.”

Raziel tried to duplicate what she was demonstrating, but she had human hands and he had three talons.

Sarah grabbed Raziel’s talons and forced them to mesh. With a little more coaching, Raziel learned how to boost Sarah into the air, and over the course of the night, she began to learn the limits of her gift. It was just before dawn when she was cavorting over the courtyard pillars.

“It’s like I’m a video-game character,” Sarah laughed.

“You will have to explain what a video-game is,” Raziel said. “I’ve heard you say that more than once.”

“Yeah we’ll talk about it in my room!” Sarah raced into the manor like a wet cat. 

“You had time before sunrise,” Raziel said as he settled on the only chair in Sarah’s room.

“I spent time as an insomniac,” Sarah said. “If I didn’t get in bed a half hour before the sun rose, I wouldn’t sleep until it set.”

“You should try to forget what only mattered when you were human,” Raziel said.

“You still want to know about video games?” Sarah asked. 

At Raziel’s nod, Sarah began sketching. “This is a hard one. There’s the TV, which just shows what’s going on like a viewing basin. Then there is the console, and it does a lot of math to put on the puppet show. This is a controller. Push one button, and the character jumps. Push another button, and it attacks enemies.”

“Why?” Raziel asked.

“For fun,” Sarah said. “In my world, we have so much time left over after meeting our basic needs that we feel like wasting it on mindless distractions.”

Sarah thought for a moment before sketching some more. “Trying to categorize games into neat little boxes doesn’t work very well, but there’s realistic and not so much. I’ll put Laura Croft as the limit of what the most athletic human could reasonably do. Eike is so realistic that he starts breathing hard if you make him run too long. The video game version of Kain feels clumsy, and Kratos is similar because he’s more about killing enemies than being able to jump. 

“On the other end, there’s games geared towards children. Jak, Sly, Ratchett, Spyro, Crash… Their enemies pop like bubbles when you hit them, and most of the challenge is in controlling their jumps. If you don’t think about how unrealistic it is, the internal logic is consistent.”

“I don’t think I understand,” Raziel said. “I’ll let you sleep for the day, and perhaps tonight you can explain it better.”


	11. Chapter 11

It was a quiet day before it started raining. Kain stood in Vorador’s garden and listened to the patter of water falling all around him.

Vorador walked out to meet him. “If it’s pain you’re interested in, my brides are quite skilled with wax.”

Kain rolled his eyes. “Rain doesn’t bother me.”

Vorador shrugged and held out a talon to catch some of the drops. “Janos is embarrassed about loosing his temper, but otherwise he is fine. He intends to apologize when he’s ready to see you.”

“I was also wrong to become angry. Even if I hadn’t been afraid of hurting him, it had been far too long since I met with a worthy adversary.” Kain frowned. “That’s the true tragedy of your death. Not only did I spend five centuries as the sole surviving vampire, but I spent most of my life without someone who was capable of standing up to me.”

Vorador decided not to press for details about his own death. “What about your sire?”

“The necromancer Mortanious created me and set me lose.” Kain placed a hand on his chest. “Even as a fledgling, I was powerful. I could have beaten Hardegin within a week of my rebirth.”

Vorador raised his eyebrows at the boast. Hardegin was a skilled warrior and centuries overdue to start his own sanctuary. “That ring in your ear, what did you do to earn a favor from me?”

Kain looked surprised. “I had come to request your help. I was trying to kill the Circle, but I could not best Malek at the time.”

“You had done nothing to prove yourself?” Vorador asked.

“Some of your children tried to have a bit of fun with me,” Kain said. “I apologize in advance for my poor sense of humor.”

Vorador knew how rough his children could be when playing. If Kain had been anywhere near as powerful as he claimed, he could have easily killed them out of fear. He had long ago given up on getting attached to the vampires he sired. “No more talk of time-travel. It gives me a headache.”

“It’s strange that you don’t seem more curious about the future,” Kain said.

Vorador snorted. “Prophecies are bad enough, but it’s unsettling to hear about things that haven’t happened as if they’re unavoidable.”

“For the most part, they are unavoidable,” Kain said. “There are things that I wish I could change, but the results would be catastrophic.”

“I don’t want to hear about it unless I have a choice,” Vorador said.

“As you wish,” Kain said.

Later that evening, Sarah and Raziel came into the library. Vorador and Kain were sitting at a table, playing chess.

“You wanted to see us?” Raziel asked.

Vorador nodded. “I like to play a game of chess with my guests. I find it helps me give an impression of what sort of person they are.”

“I’ll go next if you promise not to laugh,” Sarah said. “I don’t have the attention span.”

A few minutes later, Kain said, “It seems you have beaten me. Thank you for an interesting match.”

“Is he feeling okay?” Sarah quietly asked Raziel.

“Did you expect me to be a bad loser?” Kain asked. “It is just a game, and no one would put in their best effort against me if I reacted poorly.”

“Sorry,” Sarah said. “The stories about you were mostly about what happens when anyone gets in your way.”

Kain’s lips turned up slightly. “You wouldn’t be the first person to assume that I’m quick to anger.”

A few minutes into his game with Sarah, Vorador frowned. “Whoever taught you how to play should be tortured slowly.”

“I warned you,” Sarah said. “Anyway, no one taught me.”

“You made it sound like you’ve played this game before, and you’re better than someone who is just aware of the rules.”

“I like chess-based puzzles in small doses, and I’ve played against a machine,” Sarah said. “Machines don’t care how bad you are, and will even let you win if you can tell them to.”

“Vorador, when you are done toying with her, I require Sarah’s attention,” Kain said.

“I offer a draw,” Vorador said.

“Thank you,” Sarah said. “What’s up… I mean, what’s on your mind?”

“Do you believe the outlandish things you say sometimes?” Kain asked.

“I can lie, but I prefer not to.” Sarah paused to think. “I don’t think I’ve said anything untrue on purpose.”

“A machine that can play chess?” Kain asked. “I’ve seen a few, and it has always been controlled by a conscious will, either through sorcery or trickery.”

“Magic doesn’t exist in my world. Well, there’s a lot of weird stuff where I don’t quite understand how it works, but usually the rules under it can be explained with math,” Sarah said. “In this case, having a machine that plays chess is more believable than it being some sort of trick.”

“What is the most absurd-sounding thing that you believe?” Kain asked.

Sarah thought a moment. “Humans have walked on the moon.”

Kain pointed out the window. “That?”

Sarah looked. “The craters are different. I’m talking about the moon that goes around my world. Some people think it’s a hoax, but it would be a pretty big one.”

“Either way, what would be the point?” Kain asked.

“In the words of my country’s leader at the time, ‘We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.’ Basically we were in a big pissing contest with a country on the other side of the world. They were sending people past the atmosphere, so we had to go one better.”

“Why not just fight them?” Kain asked.

“The weapons got too dangerous. Both sides eventually had more than enough of them to make the entire world uninhabitable,” Sarah said. “Oh. Maybe that’s why they started focusing on getting off the planet.”

“That is just too implausible, especially when you claim that magic doesn’t exist. You must not be so gullible to believe everything you are told,” Kain said.


	12. Chapter 12

It had taken two days for Janos to clean up the damage from his outburst. Books had been flung from the shelves, and ashes from the fireplace got strewn on every surface. He could have magicked the ashes from the sconces as he had his clothing, but doing it by hand seemed more appropriate somehow.

When everything was clean, Janos indulged in carefully grooming each of his feathers until they were perfect. Only after all of this did he feel that he was ready to interact with people again. He decided he had wasted enough time, and teleported himself to Vorador’s.

Both of his children sensed his presence, and their whispered greetings blended together. Janos returned the greeting with a promise to talk to them later. He found Kain in the library, poring over maps.

“I’m glad to see you,” Kain said.

“I apologize for my outburst. I should have controlled myself better,” Janos said.

“I do not blame you for becoming overwhelmed. I shall try to remember that this is hard for you,” Kain said. “However, I would like your help, if you’re up to it.”

“What do you need?” Janos asked.

“Would you know if there are any Hylden ruins?” Kain asked.

“Here is where the Mass dwells,” Janos pointed to the map. He then pointed to a spot in the ocean marked ‘Here there be monsters’ and said, “I would barely be able to fly to this city. Why do you want to know?”

“After what they did to me, I want to know everything I can to keep them from succeeding,” Kain said.

“I wonder if Martuska is still alive,” Janos said. “There was a hybrid that avoided the binding, but she was raised among the Hylden.”

“If she is alive, then how would I find her?” Kain asked.

“If anyone knows, it would be Vorador,” Janos said. “He’s the one who helped her escape from where we put her.”

Kain’s telepathic shout was directed at Vorador, but it could be heard by every vampire in the mansion.

The next night, Janos was resting on a rooftop in a small fishing village. The smell of the sea irritated him, but it was the thought of crossing it that was the real concern. He could fly there if the wind was with him, but he would exhaust himself in the process.

Hardegin was able to disguise his vampiric appearance, and he was wandering through taverns trying to find a ship to hire. He had whispered eight times about his lack of success, always with the same indifference. It was not an easy thing to find a ship that would sail to a place marked “danger” on every map.

“I found a ship. It’s called the Brave Bull, and they’ll be ready to leave with the tide,” Hardegin whispered. “There are Sarafan here. I’ll try to slip away unnoticed.”

Janos frowned and wondered if it was just a coincidence, or if somehow the Sarafan knew he would be here. He didn’t keep track of every vampire in Nosgoth, so it was possible that there were some in the area. He didn’t realize that he had been holding his breath until he got another whisper from Hardegin.

“I lost them. I’ll head back to sanctuary if you don’t need anything else.”

“Go,” Janos whispered. “Thank you.”

Janos found the right ship easily enough. Since he lacked the ability to hide his true nature, he boldly landed on the deck near the wheel.

“Who are you?” one of the men demanded.

“My friend told me that he had booked passage for me on this ship,” Janos summoned a pouch from a pocket dimension. “I have your fee.”

“Well, men? Shall we uphold our end of the bargain?” the man asked.

“We were already figuring on a one-way trip, Captain,” one of the others replied. “Whatever he is, he looks harmless enough.”

Janos handed over the pouch, which was then handed to a woman standing on the dock. She began dividing up the coins among the few other women that were with her. Janos did not know which made him sadder: that humans in this area had no clue that he was an original vampire, or that he was traveling with men who thought they were abandoning their families.

The trip itself was uneventful, and soon the unnatural angles of Hylden architecture came into view.

“This is close enough. Wait for me here.” Janos launched himself into the sky cautiously flew to the island. Monstrous shapes moved under the water, and Janos grimaced at how the living defenses had survived all this time. That’s when he spotted a human and landed.

The human spoke in mangled Hylden. Janos hadn’t been an expert at the language when he was mortal, but he managed to work out that the human was asking if he was a god.

Janos didn’t want to risk saying one way or another, in case he missed the nuance of that question. “Can you speak this language? Lico vempari?” He then replied in Hylden. “I messenger. I come in peace. I return soon.”

Janos left traces of his magic in the stones under his feet. It was enough that he could now teleport back to this place. He flew back to the ship and said, “You may go. Do not return to this place unless I ask you to.” He then teleported to where Kain was.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like more nothing, and it is. I'm just along for the ride and it's about to get exciting.

The same night that Janos was waiting for a ship, Sarah and Raziel were trudging along a road that ran along a seaside cliff.

“I can’t believe Kain decided to give you orders,” Sarah grumbled. “He has no right to tell Janos or Vorador what to do, either.”

“He doesn’t have the right to tell me what to do, but I’m choosing to follow his direction. I am interested in what that Hylden has to say,” Raziel said. “You should not concern yourself with who is willing to follow Kain’s commands.”

“Sorry, it’s more that the only excuse I have for refusing is if you decide not to be my bodyguard,” Sarah said. “I prefer a screen and a controller between me and the Eternal Prison. It’s full of giant demonic spiders, amoral jailers, and crazy people with their eyes sewn shut. At least Magnus isn’t there.”

“Magnus?” Raziel asked.

“He’s the only enemy in all five games that actually scared me more than a little,” Sarah said. “Malek was funny, Melchiah laughing was a bit startling and following you into the spectral realm was a shock.   
A lot of the other enemies were either fun or pissed me off, but the game designers knew what they were doing with Magnus.”

“If you had kept your mouth shut, Vorador would have been at home to take care of you instead of searching for the hybrid,” Raziel said.

“The look on Janos’ face was kinda worth it,” Sarah said. “But me being able to nail the Seer’s accent like that means that the fourth game could have been true, even the part about Kain having a lady-friend.”

“She has the same accent as Janos,” Raziel said.

Sarah frowned. “At least I’m not on a boat. And I know the Sanctuary Spell now. And there’s probably lots of other good things that I’m not being properly grateful for.” She began to whistle the tune to ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.’

Raziel winced at the noise. “Why don’t you tell me more about Magnus?”

“They vivisected him. He was a vampire and they used hooks to keep him open. I’m not sure why his guts didn’t fall out. And he was right at that spot between lucid and crazy where a person can’t be sure what he’s going to do. That place was all sorts of creepy and I’m used to dead things. I think the line between puppet and player was getting a bit blurred.

“Sebastian was a hard fight and I got frustrated at failing to dodge, but him and the other two were cowards and I just had to use the environment to keep them from running away from a beating. Magnus was the first pure puzzle boss of the game and he didn’t laugh.”

Raziel interrupted. “Puzzle boss?” 

“Like your brothers. You needed to use the environment to kill them. Zephon’s the only one where hitting him did anything, and that was to get him to lay eggs to light on fire. Running from Dumah was a little nerve-wracking but I had figured out that you needed to burn him in the furnace. I didn’t know how Kain was going to kill Magnus.”

Raziel knew that he still didn’t completely understand video games, but he was beginning to see the appeal. “What was the solution?”

“That’s skipping the best part. He tripped and fell into a water-filled pit, but two rooms later he was back. There were bars and he doesn’t react to the player being there, but it was still creepy. Two rooms later, the same thing. Then he has a chance to get you if you don’t figure out how to drop him in more water. 

At least by that point he stays gone long enough that he seems to not be a problem anymore, though that makes it worse when he does show up again. Plus when you can’t see Magnus, there’s this laughter that I’m pretty sure wasn’t supposed to be him. There were probably other sounds and music designed to get at people’s hindbrains.”

“Hindbrains?” Raziel asked.

“That’s complicated. It’s instincts, and the part that takes over when a person’s so hungry that they’re willing to eat their best friend,” Sarah said.

“I’m beginning to think that you either have no right to complain when things are creepy, or that you’re understating the sheer wrongness of the Eternal Prison,” Raziel said.

“Let’s hope that I’m a hypocrite that just doesn’t like funhouses,” Sarah said. “Unless I’ve scared you out of it. Then it’s even worse than I make it sound.”

“I’ll only forgive you for lying this once, and only because the effort was laughable,” Raziel said.

“If my story had scared you off, Kain would probably do something painful to me and make a nasty joke or two about your courage.” Sarah rubbed her arms as if she were cold. “When Magnus showed up again, the screen went black a few times. Since the player can’t hear directionally and there aren’t any other senses, there’s nothing to do but hope. Magnus seemed to come out of nowhere and knock Kain down. There was nothing to do except try to knock Magnus down and run. And then there was the maze.”

“Somehow, the thought of Kain running away from an enemy doesn’t feel right,” Raziel said.

“I think that was part of it. He actually said that he doesn’t run or hide, even from an enemy that managed to take the Soul Reaver away from him. Having an enemy that forced him to do both was probably why it worked. Well, that and it looked like Kain was getting a bit freaked, too.”

“What?” Raziel asked. “Someone took the Soul Reaver away from Kain?”

“With a magic stone that Janos and Kain are pretty sure doesn’t exist,” Sarah said. “The story’s pretty unclear about the rest of the details. He got knocked off a cliff and was in a coma for two centuries. I figured he landed on a tree branch or a sharp rock. Also, flaming sword prophecy. It was the Hylden that possessed Mortanius and Janos.”

“How did Kain get the Reaver back?” Raziel asked.

“Melee and a little assist from Janos. It was a frustrating fight until I figured it out, but at least I had the hang of blocking and dodging by then,” Sarah said.

“Blocking the Soul Reaver?” Raziel asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Y’know, maybe Kain didn’t fall in love, either.”

“He had plenty of paramours over the years, but no one that he seemed to truly care about,” Raziel said.

“He was really upset when he killed her, I think he might have even cried a little, assuming vampires can do that.” Sarah used a mournful tone when she quoted, “You should never have betrayed me. You could have been my queen.”

“That sounds like an entertaining story, but it will have to wait.” Raziel pointed to a building that had just come into view from behind the cliffs. “It suddenly occurs to me that a plan might be helpful.”

“I think I have most of one,” Sarah said. “How do you feel about killing everyone, whether they get in your way or not, and maybe even causing destruction at every opportunity?”

“I will only kill people who get in my way, unless I get hungry,” Raziel said.

“Okay, I think I can handle the innocent bystanders,” Sarah said. “So if a guard tells you to go away, tell him that you want to see the Hylden, and threaten to bust the place up if they don’t cooperate. Then if they don’t cooperate, you just fight your way in.”

“That’s so simple that it might actually work,” Raziel said.


	14. Chapter 14

Kain surveyed the site of the Hylden’s weapon from the air. It was only when the flock of bats reformed that he was able to clearly recall what they saw. There was no trace above ground, and the humans had turned most of the area into turnip fields.

Kain hadn’t even thought of blindly teleporting before Janos complained about how dangerous it was. The ancient vampire had told him how to get into the Device if he were really willing to risk becoming part of the ground, but Janos refused to come with.

Kain spent a moment thinking about what he expected to find underground. It had belonged to the enemy that manipulated him from the moment of his birth, but was it worth risking his life? Kain decided that he still had faith in his Destiny, and that there was only one thing that could kill him.

Ultimately, there was nothing of interest. It seemed that the ancient vampires had indeed broken or taken whatever they could. The complex was huge, the Mass was hideous, and Kain felt foolish for wasting time. The only excitement came when Janos teleported next to him.

“Janos, I thought you said that you wouldn’t teleport down here,” Kain said.

“I would not do it blind,” Janos replied. “I can sense you as well as I can sense my own children.”

Kain was tempted to make a flippant remark, but he decided not to rub an uncomfortable fact in Janos’ face. Instead, Kain said, “I trust you were able to find the Hylden city?”

“Yes, I can take you there whenever you wish,” Janos said. “I do not know how useful this is, but I found that there was at least one human living there. He knew the Hylden’s language.”

“Do you understand it?” Kain asked.

“Barely,” Janos said. “It has also been thousands of years, so the meanings of the words may have changed.”

“Then perhaps we should wait and see if Raziel or Vorador have accomplished their tasks before going to the city,” Kain said.

Finneas was another vampire that Janos had turned long ago, before the human Pillar Guardians rebelled. What little skin showed under his coarse black hair was dark gray. His large ears drooped, giving the impression that he was part goat.

He lived with his children in a network of tunnels that used to be a mine. Even though parts of it had flooded when the pumps broke down long ago, a vampire could still walk for days without retracing his own steps. Getting lost was possible, but the walls were covered in murals, mosaics, and carvings. An observant wanderer would at least be able to tell when he was wandering in circles.

Right now, Finneas was indulging in his favorite hobby, which was watching the cave fish swim. They glowed softly, giving the impression that they were a sky of dancing stars. Often, he wished that he could dive in and swim among them, but he knew that it would be suicide.

His thoughts were interrupted as multiple children started informing him of a guest. Most of them recognized him as Vorador from the mural, but a few of the youngest fledglings didn’t even realize that he was a vampire and called him a monster.

Finneas teleported to the main hall, where his children were leading Vorador. “Brother, it’s been too long. What finally brings you to my home?”

“I’m afraid that this isn’t a social call,” Vorador said. “Would you happen to have heard from Martuska at all?”

“I’m afraid the trail is cold,” Finneas said. “She needed my help about twelve hundred years ago, but she didn’t tell me where she was going when she left.”

“I understand. I would have assumed that she was dead already, but our new sister can’t tell truth from fiction, and she convinced Janos that Martuska is alive.”

“You will have to tell me all about it,” Finneas said.

“I’ll come back when my quest is over, or you can be my guest if you’re inclined,” Vorador said. “If Randalf doesn’t have any leads, I will have to give up.”

“I thought you knew,” Finneas said. “The Sarafan killed him 90 years ago.”

Vorador clenched his fist. “They will not rest until we all are dead.”

Janos had turned nine humans into vampires before secluding himself to wait for his messiah to come. After the third was killed, the rest agreed that they would hold no more funerals for their siblings. They scattered to build their own bloodlines, but their numbers had still dwindled to just three before a thousand years had passed.

“I will give you time to grieve,” Finneas said.

“There will be time for that later,” Vorador said. “Let me tell you what’s been happening. The prophecies are in motion, but they’re not happening the way that Janos expected.”


	15. Chapter 15

“This isn’t anything like the game,” Sarah said. “It’s still creepy, but it’s more like an old hospital than a spooky asylum-slash-abattoir designed to make people crazy.”

“This is a place of redemption,” the Warden said. “We offer a chance for transgressors to peacefully meditate on what they have done until they correct the imbalance in their souls.” It hadn’t been happy about receiving visitors, but it decided to take Raziel’s threats seriously.

Raziel and Sarah were following the Warden down a series of hallways, and neither one could be sure of which twists and turns to take to get back out. The lights were dim, but it was soothing. The Warden itself was draped in a black robe with a metal mask completely covering its face. Its eyes glowed a soft green. The Warden stopped and held up an arm to keep Sarah and Raziel from passing.  
Two more Wardens ran down the hallway and entered a room. They pulled out a man who was screaming and covered in blood.

“That does not look very peaceful,” Raziel said.

When the others were gone, the Warden began walking again. “Many of our inmates reject the opportunity we give them at first. We will do what we can to try and help him.”

Sarah glanced into the room where the man had been kept. It was small, padded, and had a place for the man to relieve himself. “What happens in there?”

“Nothing,” the Warden said. “The cells are designed to be completely quiet and restful.”

“How long do they spend in there?” Sarah asked. 

“Centuries, unless they misbehave.”

They walked on in silence until they came to a room with exposed water. Raziel grabbed Sarah. “Not this way.”

Suddenly, the hallway was filled with Wardens. They began attacking Raziel and he was forced into the spectral realm. They still surrounded him there, but they stopped attacking. They blocked the hallway so that the only way Raziel could go was forward.

He crept into the water-filled room and asked, “Why are you here?”

The Elder God’s tentacles filled the entire room. Multiple eyes focused on Raziel as it said, “I am everywhere. These creatures work for me. I will not allow you to talk to the Hylden, or to rescue that abomination that you brought with you.”

“Then I will not rest until I have done both.” Raziel looked around for a portal, but there were none in that room.

The Elder God chuckled. “I made the portals, and I can take them away. You will not leave the spectral realm until you agree to be my servant once again.”

“Never,” Raziel spat.

He wandered through the spectral version of the Eternal Prison. The Wardens tried to usher him into a room, but they weren’t able to lock him in and quickly gave up. After that, they mostly ignored him, retreating out of the spectral realm if he tried to attack them.

Raziel spent some time worrying about Sarah. While he could spend short periods of non-time in the spectral realm and no time would pass in the material world, the equivalent passage of subjective time to actual time would start to become unpredictable. Once, he had only taken what felt like a few hours to think, only to find that a week had passed when he rematerialized.

After what felt like a few hours, Raziel found an exit from the Eternal Prison. It was a chute for disposing of inmates who had died, but Raziel would only come to that conclusion in hindsight. He came across some bodies at the bottom of a flooded pit, and found that he could inhabit one. The flesh tore as he tried to swim back up, but he concentrated on trying to stay together and found that the body became just like the corpse he was accustomed to inhabiting.

Raziel re-entered the prison and said, “Tell your master that he can either give me my friend, or I will tear this place apart to find her.”

Without waiting for an answer, Raziel attacked the nearest Warden. Beneath the robe, it was some form of insect-like monster. It bled, but there was no soul. Raziel began opening doors to the inmates’ rooms. 

Some (of the ones that still had eyes) screamed when they saw him, some stayed perfectly still as he ripped out their souls, but one saw him and said, “Wait, Raziel, don’t kill us. Let us go and we’ll distract the Wardens.”

Raziel wondered how the wretch knew his name, but he didn’t feel like stopping for an explanation. The hallway was getting crowded by the time he got to the end of it. 

A Warden appeared, holding a small person by the shoulders. He flung her at Raziel. “Take her and go.”

Raziel caught her and drew back in shock. It was Sarah, but she had aged. Her hair had been short and blonde when they came here, but now that length was hanging from dark hair that cascaded over her shoulders. Her ears were pointed, her blue eyes had turned green, and her face was more vampiric.

She grabbed Raziel’s arm, digging in with her claws, and they both vanished in a Sanctuary spell.

“You’re safe, now,” Raziel said.

He felt her tearing into his mind. He heard “Why did you take so long?” and couldn’t consciously answer even as she found the reason for herself. Raziel then felt himself from the Wraith Blade. The image in his mind was of himself, completely naked, grabbing Sarah and holding her down. He heard her screaming in his mind even as her body slumped to the ground. Then she passed out and it was over.

One of Vorador’s brides helped Raziel carry Sarah to her room.

“How long were we gone?” Raziel asked.

“Only one night,” the vampiress said. “She looks over a century older.”

Raziel’s own brood had aged inconsistently. Packs that were turned together aged at the same rate, but later packs caught up to their elders at a much faster rate. Still, it seemed that much time had passed from Sarah’s perspective.

Without knowing what to do, Raziel sat watch over Sarah and waited for her to wake up. The vampiress from before brought a pitcher of blood, and Raziel began feeding Sarah a drop at a time. Soon, her eyes fluttered open. She grabbed Raziel’s talon and stared at him while she explored the edges with her fingers.

“What did they do to you?” Raziel asked.

“Nothing,” She croaked. Raziel helped her sit up and held a goblet of blood to her lips. She drained it in a second but spoke with her mind instead of her voice. “Show me what the squid looks like.”  
Raziel could feel her mind brushing against his. It was uncomfortable, but he decided not to resist it. “I’m not sure how.”

Again, Raziel’s future soul joined them in his mind. It stared at him, seemingly completely unashamed by the exposed void where his jaw should have been. Sarah’s image was human, down to the short blonde hair and blue eyes.

As if sensing the unspoken question, Sarah said, “There weren’t any mirrors where they were keeping me.”

Soon, the edges of Raziel’s consciousness began to squirm. “I don’t like that you’re reading memories that I’m not showing you.”

“He’s the one doing this,” Sarah said. “I apologize for earlier. I really don’t have a good excuse.”

“You can read his mind as well?” Raziel asked.

“What’s left of it. He’s not suffering, at least,” Sarah said. “The only reason I’m still sane is that I found people that I could whisper with. Then when I developed my gift, I began visiting the human prisoners. I knew before I came here that humans don’t react well to solitary confinement, but their minds start falling apart really quickly.”

“I don’t want to think about that.” Raziel pointed to his other incarnation. “You, go away.”

The Soul Reaver made a very specific flicking motion with his talons and an ugly laughing sound. Raziel understood clearly. They were inextricably bound until he became what he most feared.


	16. Chapter 16

Kain, Janos, Raziel, Sarah, Vorador, and Finneas were gathered in the dining hall. Kain explained that he planned to explore the Hylden City next, and about the human that spoke Hylden.

“It will be impossible to find Martuska unless she wants us to find her,” Vorador said.

Kain frowned, but then turned to Raziel. “Were you able to find the Hylden?”

“I did,” Sarah said. “We need to rescue them both.”

“Do you really think it’s wise to let our enemies run free?” Kain asked.

Sarah had been crouched in her chair like a gargoyle, but she stood up. “They don’t deserve to be there. They’re not evil, in fact their crimes were doing the right thing. Chixiksi got put in there because he realized that complete genocide was going too far. Put them in a gilded cage if you want them contained, but I think they’re willing to help.”

“I think you are still too quick to trust,” Kain said. 

“The Wardens fed me four-thousand, eight-hundred, and sixty-four times before I ran out of space to make marks and gave up trying to keep track,” Sarah walked across the table toward Kain, who stood so she wouldn’t tower over him. “That’s how long I’ve been talking to them. I know what the war was like for them, stories from their childhoods, they’re like my best friends now.”

Janos stood up, “Sarah, their corruption has obviously poisoned your mind.”

“I love you so much it hurts, but you are on the wrong side, Janos,” Sarah turned to Kain. “Hear me out. I’m not talking about making peace with the ones in the demon dimension. I’m guessing that they’re worse than you when it comes to holding a grudge.”

“Do I still have your allegiance?” Kain asked.

“I want to see you do the right thing,” Sarah said. “I’ll be honest and help you as much as I can, but I’ll tell you if I refuse to cooperate because I think you’re doing the wrong thing. I won’t stab you in the back, but please try not to do anything that makes me want to betray you.”

“And what if I refuse to rescue your friends?” Kain asked.

Sarah stared at him for a moment. “I’ll be very disappointed in you, and I’ll keep telling you that until you decide I’m no longer useful and throw me away.”

“That’s it?” Kain asked.

“She might even convince me to help,” Raziel said. “While her arguments fail because you don’t have a sense of mercy or a better nature to appeal to, she also is not resorting to any threats serious enough to warrant action from you. However, if you don’t agree to her very reasonable request, you will suffer for it. I have been on the receiving end of incessant attempts to convince me to do something, and it is not pleasant.”

“You are a very poor manipulator, Sarah,” Kain said. “I would not concede to your wishes if I did not need them as translators.”

“Poor manipulator is a compliment coming from you, Kain.” Sarah sighed. “I’m fluent in Hylden, and I’ll talk to those humans whether or not you move my friends to a nicer prison.”

Kain blinked in surprise. “Do you have any other bargaining chips, since you just threw away that one?”

“Lots, and you can have all of them for free,” Sarah said. “Well, I’m not going to go into detail about how the device works because I don’t want you using it for genocide, but I’ll tell you just about everything else I know about the Hylden. It’s not perfect because Chixiksi was low-caste, but it might help.”

“No, I shall reward you for your service. What you ask is reasonable enough considering the favors you have offered me.” Kain said. “You said there were two. What can you tell me about the other one?”

“He was still a vampire when the war ended,” Sarah said. “Ozker Jamshidi, and he was locked up for heresy against the squid.”

Janos gasped. “I owe him my life. But how could he become a Hylden?”

“Well, he didn’t want to be a vampire anymore and I don’t blame him one bit,” Sarah said. “I still think of myself as a cursed human.”

Kain interrupted. “We’ll have time to discuss philosophy later. For now, let’s concern ourselves with a rescue plan.”

Getting Chixiksi and Ozker out of the Eternal Prison turned out to be as simple as causing as much carnage as possible until the prisoners were handed over. Their gilded cage was a decent-sized building in the Hylden city. Kain, Raziel, Janos, Hardegin, Sarah, and a vampiress named Isolda, set up their home in another part of the city. Living together wasn’t easy at first, but everyone but Janos settled in eventually.

Raziel was clearing away pieces of a collapsed ceiling so that the building beyond could be explored. It seemed that it was all he was good for until he was ready to sacrifice himself. Sarah had apologized for taking away his hope that he could escape his destiny, but he realized that hope could drive people to dangerous purposes.

He smelled blood, and turned to see Janos walking along the road. The ancient was missing the lower half of four primaries on his left wing.

“Janos, what happened?” Raziel asked.

“I was trying to bring Ozker back to us, but that Hylden has him thoroughly under his spell,” Janos said. “They’re just feathers, but I’m grounded until they grow back.”

“You’re bleeding,” Raziel said.

Janos made a disgruntled noise as he finally noticed the blood. “I should have checked. That feather will have to be yanked out. Would you be able to do it?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Raziel said.

“It will only hurt for a moment, and otherwise I will bleed to death.” Janos sat on a rock. “Do I need to ask someone else?”

Raziel stepped forward, and Janos obligingly stretched his wing. Finding the offending feather was easy, and it offered little resistance to coming out. “Will that one grow back, as well?”

“It takes constant plucking to cause permanent damage,” Janos said.

“You should just let Ozker be,” Raziel said. “I don’t know exactly what he’s been through, but I’ve been there myself. No one will be able to force him, especially not you.”

“You, Raziel?” Janos asked.

“It’s embarrassing and I’d rather not go over the details with you. Not yet,” Raziel said. “Sarah told me that it doesn’t matter what you are, but who you are. A person can become completely different from the rest of their kind, no matter the circumstances of their birth.”

“Hopefully Hardegin and Isolda can show her how to be a vampire,” Janos said.

“What does that even mean?” Raziel asked. “If you had visited my clan during the height of the empire, you would have found us enjoying our hunger for blood.”

“The bloodcurse was a side-effect, but you also carry within you a spark of the divine,” Janos said.

“We did believe ourselves to be gods. But Janos, you should really let us show you what you were worshipping,” Raziel said.

“It could have been an imposter,” Janos said.

Raziel felt Janos’ feather crumple in his talon. “If I ever can prove it to you, I will, even if breaking your faith destroys you.” He threw the feather to the ground and walked away.


	17. Chapter 17

Kain was frustrated at how many of his problems had not been solved, and he was again at an impasse. The humans on the island knew nothing of importance, and speaking their language only facilitated the beginnings of a blood cult that allowed the vampires to feed without hunting. Chixiksi seemed eager to help Kain, though he could not trust the Hylden’s motives.

It seemed that Chixiksi was of little help even if it wasn’t his intention. He was a simple worker in a time long past, and had to be told about the binding. Kain could just as well ask a Sarafan about Ottmar’s Court. Chixiksi did know the story Sarah told him about what would happen if the other Hylden escaped the demon dimension, and he believed that they couldn’t simply be released without horrible consequences for everyone.

“I’m sorry, Kain,” Chixiksi said. “There may be another way I can help you. If I could have some tissue samples from you and the other vampires, I might be able to understand how the blood curse works, and possibly develop a cure.”

“You want to be able to turn us back into humans?” Kain asked.

“I’m not sure what effects a cure might have without studying it,” Chixiksi said. “Even understanding how it’s possible to jump species might be useful.”

“You are fortunate. Janos is the one who first discovered how to pass it on to humans,” Kain said.

“Fortunate,” Chixiksi spat. “I’d rather start with the tissue samples. That vampire is a prime example of why we even considered building the Device.”

“I shall speak with him, then,” Kain said.

Raziel wandered into the upper city where the vampires lived. Hardegin was giving Sarah a sword-fighting lesson, but he stopped when he saw Raziel.

“Care for a duel to show her how it’s done?” Hardegin asked.

“I’m not in a good mood,” Raziel said.

“Then you’ll be sloppy,” Hardegin said. I’ll go easy on you, and a good fight might lighten your mood.”

Raziel accepted the wooden sword and the duel began. Hardegin was good, and eventually Raziel’s frustrations melted away with his spent adrenaline.

Hardegin leaned on his sword. “You’re not bad. You have some noble flourishes, but you don’t waste much time on them.”

“I feel as if I’ve seen your fighting style before,” Raziel said.

“Don’t hold this against me, but I was a Sarafan,” Hardegin said.

“So was I, though I lost all memory of it,” Raziel said. “Did it make things difficult for you?”

“I spent the first week chained to a bed so I didn’t try to kill myself.” Hardegin’s expression and inflection didn’t change, as if he didn’t have emotions. “It would have been longer, but Vorador got tired of me. He prefers it when they openly weep.”

“What caused you to accept being a vampire?” Raziel asked.

“I realized that I was already tainted and damned to Hell. I had nothing to lose by not committing suicide,” Hardegin said. “Eventually I stopped caring. Believing that I was doing the right thing as a Sarafan meant that I could also be cruel without remorse. As a vampire, whether I’m cruel or merciful is the product of my whims.”

“Why didn’t you leave Vorador?” Raziel asked. “You’re obviously old enough not to need him. You might even be able to start your own clan.”

“I don’t react well to complete freedom. I need a master. Vorador’s come to understand what he can expect from me,” Hardegin said. 

“Janos expects you to teach Sarah how to be more vampire, but you don’t seem to think of yourself as divine,” Raziel said. 

Sarah had been watching quietly, but she began cackling. “Janos can go jump in a lake. If his idea of divinity is anything like what Ozker described, it’s an example of what not to do if you care about actually being a good person. Their people started a thousand-year war because their god didn’t like the Hylden.”

“There is no one so wicked as the righteous,” Hardegin said.

“Sarah, I want to gain the ability to show Janos what his god looks like for himself. He will not trust merely seeing my memories,” Raziel said.  
“I’ve spent a long time thinking about that,” Sarah said. “The wraith blade is the one who would know if it will actually work that way. Follow me.”

Raziel let Sarah lead him, but asked, “Where are we going?”

“I can enter someone’s mind at a distance, but it’s easier with contact. It’s also easier if we’re able to relax.” Sarah led him to her bedroom. “So, let’s cuddle.”

Raziel felt ridiculous as he climbed into bed. He flinched as Sarah settled in next to him and pillowed her head on his shoulder. Since his execution, being touched made him uncomfortable. It reminded him that he was hideous, and he was surprised that anyone was willing to be close to him without the intention to kill him.

His senses faded and the mental imagery took over. Sarah’s mental image resembled how she looked now. Then there was the Soul Reaver. He shook his head and then gestured for them to follow. It was ungainly, almost moving like a sluagh. Soon the surroundings resolved into Kain’s throne room.

A statue of Kain was sitting on his throne and holding a stone representation of the Soul Reaver sword. Statues of his six sons stood around the dais. In the middle of the dais was a forge.  
Starting with Melchiah, Raziel’s future incarnation plucked dark glowing crystals from the statues. Zephon, Rahab, and Dumah were next, but he skipped Turel to pluck a crystal from Raziel’s statue. He then held the crystals in the forge and they turned white, but they darkened again when removed from the flame. The wraith then took a crystal from Turel’s statue, and together all six pieces stayed white. The wraith then approached Kain’s statue and another dark crystal appeared. The light crystals joined with Kain’s, and it resolved into a soul.

Raziel blinked. “Are you saying that each of else held a piece of Kain’s soul?”

The Soul Reaver nodded and pointed at Turel.

“Is there anything else you have to tell us?” Raziel asked.

The scenery shifted. The Pillars were whole, surrounded by the rubble of Kain’s throne room. In the middle, Kain sat on the floor, crying over his sword. It was an ugly sight. Snot ran down his face to mingle with his tears, his hair was a mess, and his loud sobbing was interrupted by hiccups.

Raziel broke the mental connection and scrambled out of bed. “I’ve never seen Kain like that.”

“He’s never been not corrupted,” Sarah said.


	18. Chapter 18

Every morning, the vampires met to discuss any discoveries or concerns.

“There’s some sort of pest in the northwest access tunnel,” Hardegin said. “More annoying than dangerous, but I don’t suggest going down there alone.”

Isolda said something in Hylden. “I assume that means the humans are becoming unhappy with the arrangement?”

“Roughly it means they’re questioning what we can do to them if they stop doing what we want,” Sarah said.

“I’ll be ready to put them in line if need be,” Isolda said. “We don’t need their faith, just their blood.”

“I found some things that Chixiksi would like a closer look at,” Sarah said. “Really we’d get twice as much done if you could just let the Hylden wander.”

“No, but he has offered to study the blood curse,” Kain said. “He just needs a bit of blood and skin from each of you and the process is almost painless.”

“He probably will use them for nefarious purposes,” Janos grumbled.

Sarah strode across the room and slapped Janos in the face. “That is enough. What is your problem?”

“He is a Hylden,” Janos said.

“You act like that means something,” Sarah said.

“He is evil,” Janos insisted.

Sarah’s frown deepened “You’ve met evil humans.”

“Humans aren’t evil.”

“Even Sarafan?”

“They are misguided.”

“I think the reason you can’t hate the Sarafan is because your people were just like them and you know it,” Sarah said.

Janos slowly stood up and walked to the door. “I never imagined that I would lose one of my children like this.”

“What, by being too stubborn to stop being such an idiot?” Sarah asked. “The way you’re acting disgusts me.”

Janos left, and Sarah sat down.

“Sarah, do you need a moment?” Raziel asked.

“No, I was prepared to hurt him. I just wish I didn’t have to,” Sarah said.

“He didn’t hurt you?” Raziel asked.

Sarah shrugged. “It stung, but bio-dad wasn’t a peach, either.”

That evening the vampires worked to get Chixiksi the materials he needed to study the bloodcurse. This meant not only tissue samples, but equipment and machines from elsewhere in the city. Not everything could be moved, meaning that Sarah would have to take the work to the laboratories when needed.

Janos came to the cage, and he said, “I have been thinking. It is not right for me to judge you the way I have been. I do not trust you, but I am willing to give you a chance.”

“What changed your mind?” Raziel asked.

“I was really insulted by being compared to a Sarafan,” Janos said.

Sarah giggled. “Well I’m glad it got through to you. You wouldn’t have liked what else I had in mind.”

“It would have been horrible,” Ozker said. “You have no idea what depths of hatred humans are capable of.”

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Janos asked.

Sarah crossed her arms. “I’m not sorry.”

“How many of my kind did you kill during the war?” Chixiksi asked.

Janos sighed. “I was a healer. I only saw how our own kind suffered. So many were beyond hope.”

“Well that explains a bit,” Sarah said. “The only way a job like that doesn’t mess you up is if you were messed up to begin with.”

“What would you know about that?” Janos asked.

“I looked at murder victims to help bring their killers to justice,” Sarah said. “The only people who last for more than a few years in that job are sociopaths.”

A week later, Kain came to Chixiksi’s cage to hear his progress.

“It was sloppy, both what my people did to create the curse and what Janos did to pass it on,” Chixiksi said. “It was based on an immortality treatment that we designed for ourselves, and that part is easily reversable.”

“They made it contagious,” Ozker said. “It wasn’t meant to affect other species, but when a vampire tries to make a human be more like us, the blood curse follows.”

“Why would your people want to give up immortality?” Kain asked.

“Because the aging process is required for growth, for reproduction. I feel sorry for anyone who was pregnant when the curse hit,” Chixiksi said. “I wouldn’t even be able to clone a vampire without being able to protect it from the curse."

“How would a cure affect turned vampires?” Kain asked.

“It is hard to predict. You are an anomaly and removing your immortality might kill you. I would need samples from your descendants to even try to predict what would happen to them,” Chixiksi said. “For descendants of Janos, it seems they would be mostly human with a combination of vampire traits and random gene expression. However, those changes would be much slower and they’d die of old age before it affected their hands.”

“If Isolda and I were both cured, we should be able to have a child,” Ozker said. “Vampires couldn’t breed with humans, only Hylden. Theoretically the same would be true for Sarah, but she’d rather stay immortal. Turned vampires who were cured would also be human enough to breed with other humans, though we’re not sure if the offspring would be compatible with vampires or what sort of traits they might inherit.”

“However, if I can't develop a vaccine, we need to make sure that every vampire has been treated so that their curse is no longer contagious. Otherwise, any new vampires that are cloned, born, or brought forward with time travel will be affected,” Chixiksi said.

“That should be simple enough in five centuries,” Kain said. “Every vampire except for me will be wiped out.”

“We’re also aware that doing anything regarding the curse in this time could have unintended side-effects,” Ozker said. “You understand time travel better than we do. Wouldn’t we have to travel to your future to do something of this magnitude?”

“That would be safest,” Kain said. “However, it may be difficult to track down all of my grandchildren. There may be another way, if somehow I could still pass the curse on in its less contagious form, then my children would inherit it.”

“That would require samples and more study,” Chixiksi said. “Raziel told us how he passed the curse on, but we weren’t able to get a meaningful sample from him.”

“That can be arranged,” Kain said.

Kain was weary when he returned with the samples. All six of his children, plus between ten and twenty vampires from each clan. He retreated to his bedroom for some rest. He had traveled to a month before Raziel entered the state of change for the final time. Seeing his favorite son like that, seeing the rest of his children at the height of their power, it almost broke his resolve.

**Author's Note:**

> So that's part 1. Part 2 will be after a time-skip.


End file.
